King Cluck part 2

I know you are all waiting on the edge of your seats to see how King Cluck is doing! We forgot to check on him after a week, and didn't get around to changing him till about a week and a half after we started. I think part of me made myself forget because I was scared that I would open up the bag and we would all pass out from the smell. So we brought it down and all held our breath. I think I was the first one to breath, and was happy that all I could smell was the rubbing alcohol. So we took him out (ok ok there was no WE, it was ALL me, the kids were not touching him, no matter what!) and brushed him off.

 I asked the kids if they wanted to don a glove and tough him but they all said no. I couldn't get either of our ABA therapists to touch him either. In fact I am pretty sure Mrs. J would of been in the other room in I had not made her take pictures! She is having mixed feelings between being amazed by this and freaked out. LOL  He is definitely getting tougher feeling. The breast is the softest part on him, but still does not give much when you push on him, and his winds are pretty dried out already. I can't wait to see what he looks and feels like next time.

We then mixed up another mixture of salt and baking soda and covered him all over again. There he will sit for another couple of weeks. (Yeah, yeah, I know it should be checked in one week but it has already been over a week since we did the first check.) I have kinda checked him and the mixture does not look that we so I have not been in a huge rush.

Blast Off!

For The Boy's birthday earlier in the year he got a rocket kit. I had put it up for later and we totally forgot about it. We recently found it again and the boys have been begging to do it. We needed to get to the store to get a 2 liter bottle of soda and drink it. This of course was a big hit with the boys. LOL This is The Boy after we had taped up the contraption.

We had to take our paper, wrap it around the clear tube and tape it up. Making sure it would slide off the tube, Then we had to punch out the wings for the bottom and the cone for the top. I saw we but this was ALL me, it was way to hard for the kids to do it. I used a glue gun to glue the wings on the bottom and the cone on top. Once I finished all the boy's rockets we headed outside! Here they are with their rockets.

We would put the rocket onto the tube and then stomp on the bottle. This would force the air out of the bottle, through the tire tube, and push the rocket off the clear tube. We had to make sure the top was totally glued onto the rocket or else to much air would leak out and the rocket would not shoot. There was a lot of rocket repair after shots that had the rocket land on its' tip. The kids had a blast and even loved blowing into the tube to blow the bottle back up. As we went we had to re-tape the bottle to the tube and it was starting to leak air. We got some pretty good shots off and it went farther then I thought it would a few times.

King Cluck

Meet King Cluck.

He will soon be mummified. We are studying Mummies and what better way then to mummify something. Of course when I told The Hubby we were mummifying a  chicken he thought I meant some bacon wrapped chicken for dinner. Imagine his surprise when he came home to a blob on the fridge. LOL You can see above the items we used. We chose a Cornish Game Hen since it is smaller and will take less time and materials.

We used the rubbing alcohol to wash the hen off and kill the germs and hopefully lower the smell level.  Here you can see Monkey prepping King Cluck for his bath. Cat boy was going to bath him but even with the gloves he decided mom should do it.

Next we mixed 2 parts salt to 2 parts baking soda. We will check King Cluck every few days and replace this mixture whenever it starts to get wet. We used 4C salt and 2C baking soda. I think it was a tad much for our little hen but not by much. I think we might make a HUGE batch next time and then just use what we need each time we change it out.

Here is Monkey helping me load up the cavity with the mixture. We made sure he was nice and full and then both him and Cat Boy made sure the bottom of the bag and all of King Cluck was covered.

Here is King Cluck all covered. He will sit in the back for the next month or 2 on top of my fridge. When the mixture gets wet we will take him down, Clean him off and re-cover him. Of course I will blog that as well. For now I just hope he does not stink.

Sailing

So today The Boy and The Hubby are out sailing. They are doing the mixed couples race which is a little over 10 miles up the Patuxent River. When they get there there is a little raft up which they might hang out at if the rain stays away. Last year was the first year they did this race together and got there in about an hour and a half. They didn't time themselves officially because they were not a mixed gender team but afterwords it was decided that a kid sailing would count. After all having an 8yo as your crew was not an advantage. LOL This year he is 9 so still not an advantage. I sailed this with The Hubby 2 years ago and it was HOT with no wind. We were gone about 11 hrs. It was NOT fun. The weather today looks perfect. Here are some shots of them from Thursday Night Racing 2 nights ago.

 

Started School Today

Today we started school. Monkey has been begging me to start for a few days now so I figured we would give it a go. We always start out the year a bit slow to get everyone back in the groove. We do do some things over the summer but they are more relaxed and here and there so it takes some time for us to get back into the swing of things.
 We started with math. All 3 boys use Singapore math US edition. Singapore Math Monkey started with 1A, Cat Boy with 2A, and The Boy is in the middle of his 4A book. When Monkey finished I gave him my phone and had him start tracing letters and numbers using the Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) app I have on my phone while I worked with the other 2. When he got bored with that I put some Leap Frog videos on for his letters on Netflix. We just use Netflix for streaming and it is really great. There is even a Homeschooling with Netflix group on Facebook. Homeschooling with Netflix.
 Next it was time for Science. We have been using R.E.A.L Science by Pandia Press for a few years now and LOVE it! R.E.A.L Science Odyssey There is a ton of great experiments that really keep the kids engaged. I am using the same book for all 3 kids. This year we are doing Earth and Space. Since I could not find our thermometer to do the first experiment on Weather, I went and found a short video on Amazon Prime about how they predict the weather. Then I ordered a new thermometer on Amazon with Amazon Prime. I absolutely LOVE Amazon Prime and if you don't already have it try it out. They have some promos with Amazon Mom and Amazon Student.
 That was all we managed to do today. I am waiting on a few more books to come in before we have everything we need to start, but since we start out slow anyway it is ok. We also need to finish setting up the school room since we are moving it from its own room into the basement. However if I waited for that to get done we would NEVER start school.

Long time no post

Wow it has been 2 years since I have last posted. Funny that the last post I posted was of Cat Boy's first day of kindergarten and now we are starting on the 2nd year of homeschooling him. It has been going great and the best thing for him. Kindergarten was wonderful for him but 1st was not so we pulled him and have never looked back! This year Monkey will be starting Kindergarten, Cat Boy will be starting 2nd grade, and The Boy will be in 4th.

Of course taking Cat Boy out of school was the least of the changes around here! We welcomed Princess into our family almost 6 months ago! The boys all love their little sister and she is already so spoiled with love. She gets so sad if she is alone because she is so used to having SOMEONE to entertain her.

The boys were excited she was home

Out little princess

As we start our new school year, and The Hubby gets ready to start his new company (check it out if you need any IT services. www.erilistechnologysolutions.com ) I hope to keep this blog updated. We have a lot of exciting changes and things coming up in the next few months so hopefully I can use this to keep everyone updated.

 Yesterday was Meet the Teacher day at Cat Boy's new school. He is going to Kindergarten this year and  is going to a new school. He was excited to go, but as soon as we get ready to go into the car he started to have an anxiety attack. He was scared and did not want to go. I literally had to make him go into the room and he cried for about 30 minutes. It was way to much "new" for him. New school, new teachers, new kids, just to much unknown. It took a while but I got him through it and then he was just fine! There were 2 great little girls who tried to make him feel better and that just made my heart swell! His teacher seems GREAT and I think he will have a great year! As soon as I said "This is Cat Boy" while he was screaming she went to grab his picture chart from his last school. She was nice and prepared for him and his challenges and that made me feel  so lucky that we have her. She told me her dad passed last year and his name was Cat Boy Smith....she knows he was meant to be in her class and I think she is right!

Today was the first day. He was super excited to go and yelled at me for taking to long taking my 3 minute shower! LOL He helped me pack his lunch in his new Hello Kitty lunch bag. He had to have a heart shaped PB&J sandwich, little carrots to show Mrs. Hirtz (he told her yesterday how much he likes carrots), and little chickadees (like goldfish). I was worried he would still be hungry but they have breakfast at school too so he said he was fine after having 2 breakfasts!

 He was excited to see the bus coming! We had talked about how he was riding a big bus this year and it would no longer have car seats built into the seats like his buses did for that last 2 years. He said he would be fine and would just hold onto something. He ended up being assigned to the first seat on the passenger side and sure enough was holding onto the wall in front of him as they drove away! I love that he is on that side of the bus so I can see him in the window! He waved bye to me for the first time in the 2 years he has rode a bus! I was SOOOOOO happy!

 Since I knew I would need something to keep me busy today we met some friends up at Anne Marie Gardens to have some fun! Here Monkey is making a wish flag as part of an art exhibit they have going on. He is drawing ghost friends in the picture but said he did not have a wish. The Boy did not want to make a wish flag so he just ran around.

Right now Anne Marie Gardens has a Fairy House exhibit going on. You want around and find the 45 hidden Fairy Houses. They give you a map and on some houses (like the one in the picture) there are little clues with letters on them and when you put all the letters together you can spell out the secret words. Oh and they have a dress up area so the kids can dress up while they run around the gardens. The Boy is wearing a dragon hat!

Off the path a bit was the Fairy Obstacle Course. There were a bunch of fun activities there. Stump Jump, Fairy Cafe, wooden board where you put your head on characters, some other stuff, and the Fairy Stage. Lydia (the one in the yellow) insisted that all the adults sit and watch a show put on by all the kids. The Boy was the dragon, Lydia was a warrior princess, and Thane was a knight! They of course killed the dragon! We had a blast and found all the Fairy houses! The Boy is already talking about going back before the Fairy Houses are gone and bringing Cat Boy. We will be back!

Finally it was time for Cat Boy to get home! I was bursting with excitement to see how his day went! When I asked him how school was he simply said "HAPPY!" He had a great day and after bribing him with Burger King he told me all about it! He played blocks, on the bouncy things at recess (whatever that is), read books, made a project (which he brought home and it was super sweet about how he will be just fine in school ect), had lunch, and generally had a fun day! I know there will be rough days ahead but for now I am just glad today was okay!